


Written

by afterandalasia



Category: Cinderella (1950), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms Fusion, Community: disney_kink, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dark, Fate & Destiny, Gen, Hatred, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-02 10:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6563047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are stories which are told, and they become truths.</p><p>There are paths which are taken, and before long they <i>must</i> be taken, because other paths wither and fade. And whether those paths are in the light, or plunge deeply and irrevocably into darkness, is rarely within the control of those who must walk them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written

**Author's Note:**

> From the [anon prompt](http://disney-kink.livejournal.com/9516.html?thread=5392428#t5392428) at Disney Kink.
> 
> Essentially, Disney stories as influenced by The Tradition of the Tales of the 500 Kingdoms. Ended up as a sort of meta-narrative encompassing a lot of Disney fandoms, with a focus on Lady Tremaine from Cinderella (1950).

Once upon a time...

No. That is not right. That is too young, too fresh, too new to be right. And this is a beginning to early to deserve such a description.

_Once_.

_Once_ , there were no stories, no narrative woven through the world. There is no tale as old as time – how can there be? Time is too deep for the human mind to grasp, too wide to see across, so vast and uncontrollable and austere that no mere human could ever hope to have a hold upon it. And since it is through humans that tales come into being and are spun, how could any story reach so far?

Unless, of course, Time itself is not the issue here, and rather _time_ is under scrutiny, that is to say the way in which humans understand the word. Time and _time_ are rather different things, of course, as much as a day is different to the impassive way in which the world turns, that a thing held and owned and known is different to some abstract concept of one. If _time_ , then, is thought of only as human-old, then yes, there may be a tale as old as time.

 

 

_Once_.

Once a creature-that-would-become-human looked at a stone, and saw that there was an edge, and thought that there could be a use. And so _stone_ became _tool_ , and more than that it was seen that a stone could _become_ a tool, and that a tool _was once_ a stone. In would-become-human words and concepts was this mutability formed, and with it came a sense of _time_ , of the difference between was and is.

And the first story was written this: _Things change._

 

 

 

Time passed, and _time_ as it now existed passed on too, and of the many things which changed not least were the creatures themselves, which now could be called things-becoming-human. (Not, of course, that they knew such a thing – were they to be given the concepts of humans, they would probably call them _things-that-were-once-us_ , and would be just as accurate to do so.)

Where once a stone had become a tool, now designs had been created, and stone became perhaps the first medium for what would one day be called _art_. And so begins the spiralling of the mind-becoming-human, ever outward and onward and deeper, and from that same mind there comes a sense of purpose, of power, that there can be control over things which come to pass.

And so the second story was written thus: _Things shall be changed._

 

 

Time wound on, and flesh and bone flowed, on such great scales, like melting ice and fading shadows, and humans emerged out of the shells of what they were and breathed bright life into the universe. They knapped and painted and carved and created, and when they were not forming physical things they are creating fantasies and stories, spilling forth. They populated the world with magic as they spread out into it, creating their own gods to call creators, and so stories began to take form and depth and breathe with life, to populate the worlds now coming to life.

So it was that the world of Hercules was created, with all of its gods and satyrs and pegasi, creatures as vivid as words and bound in form only by the shape of human imagination. Of course, for every flaring light in the mind there is its shadow, though, and one falls on Eilonwy and Taran and almost drags them down. But of course they succeed, and in their victory and a thousand others hope is found. Humans forget when the good ones lost, because no-one wants to think that there is not justice in this world, and from belief in justice, justice blooms, fragile at first like an ice-petalled flower, but growing stronger and richer and winding tree-roots into the world as its canopy reaches for the stars and spreads across us all.

And so the story was written thus: _Good exists, and ever shall it win._

 

 

Time winds on, but only a fraction in the great story of the world, and yet _time_ races and bounds and tugs along the human race with laughter that reverberates across the strings of the tapestry of life. Magic plucks at the world, shaping and tweaking it, but now it has become more subtle, and though there remain fairies and djinn and creatures demon-strong, they are shaped like humans now. Human minds have moved on, and deal more in abstracts, in beauty and honour and good and evil, given shape by thought and belief, woven into the very existence of the world.

So it was that Jafar’s dissatisfaction with his lot turned to power-hunger, turned to evil; so it was that Aladdin rose with the light of good in him, fuelled by love, and tore him down. (Because it was not right for humans to use magic, people had decided somewhere and sometime; only creatures that are not human should do so. As if the power of a hundred thousand beliefs was not magic in itself.)

So it was that the longed-for child named Aurora – because longing is a power, and the longer something is waited for the more powerful it becomes – found herself in the middle of a battle between these forces, as always people were torn between good and evil. So it was that Phillip joined her in its midst, and from a touch of hands and a song and a dance love bloomed in them, knowing already its place in the world, and together they broke free from what would have bound them.

So it was that Snow White came almost to her doom, because the old always fears and hates and envies the new all mixed together, and because everyone knows that those with too much darkness in them will hate anything that is not theirs (and some things which are). And again it was evil that in human form used magic, and that magic which came to save could not be human at all.

And so many stories were written, proliferating and spreading, weaving into people’s minds and souls, thick as sunlight in the air.

 

 

And so _time_ moved again, and new things were found, and human minds found new things to which they could be put.

And so the newest story was written thus: _Science is_.

 

 

It cannot be told, even now, what stories were in the world before humans and what came after – for we are human, and cannot see with eyes other than our own. Yet humans are ever contrary creatures, and as the story of science spread, so was it decided that there was a difference between _real_ and _not-real_ , and that one was somehow better than the other.

(So it was that none save Quasimodo retained their belief in magic, and only he could see the gargoyles move and hear their words; so it was that only Pocahontas could hear the history and wisdom of the world around her.)

Of course, beliefs linger – because once something is thought, it is all but impossible to remove or to forget, and in any case it is a while before children learn not to believe. Ariel leapt forth from the water in all her brightly-coloured beauty, from an underwater world that exists and yet does not quite exist. Adam betrayed the beast in all of us; Rapunzel displayed the light we all can yet contain. But already magic was fading, confined to worlds like that which Alice created for herself.

 

 

It was in those days, those dying days, that a girl was born, and called Georgina Badeau, but alas her name would not be remembered in the great scheme of things. She was wed young, and had two daughters, before she bore the misfortune of being widowed. Not an unusual tale, one must admit, and far from the sort of thing that would attract the attention of the thinning threads of magic and of tradition which still crept through the world seeking suitable candidates to use in their stories. Until, as occasionally happens, she fell in love with a man.

History does not record his name; perhaps it does not matter. What was important was that he, too, had a daughter (She was not called Cinderella then, and her name too is lost. Names are not important to stories, when all is said and done), and an ancient and dark story took hold of that fact and held tight to it.

_You will hate her,_ the story promised, whispering in Georgina’s ear as she became Georgina Tremaine, Lady Tremaine, _because she is not you or yours, she is a rival, and you have seen the pictures of her mother and the beauty she holds._

There is a little belief that flickers in all of us, and in Lady Tremaine the candle of light she still held guttered as the story wove around it and began to choke out its air. She wanted to love the girl, to care for her, and while the girl’s father lived still she could cling to the love for him that fuelled her goodness still.

And then he died, and love died with him, and the light in her extinguished to leave darkness behind. So deep did she plunge, not even for her own daughters could she summon love. And somewhere inside her was screaming, but it was lost in the darkness, as the story took over her and one last fragment of darkness clung to the world a little while longer, until it attracted light to burn it out again.

 

 

Magic faded, and the world spoke in words like _rational_ and _reasonable_ and _logical_ , and derided what once _was_ in favour of what was considered _true_. Flickers lingered on, of course (a dragon in the mind of a boy named Pete, a whole momentary world around a woman named Mary Poppins, a woman named Tiana so wound with strength and love and power that what was left of magic drew itself in to her), but magic became but a story, locked away inside the pages of books.

And yet... books can spread wider than word of mouth, live longer, maintain their stories more permanently. The stories within them no longer need the human mind at all times. And then as science moves further still (or more correctly, _humans_ move further still and merely attribute their innovation and invention to some abstract concept of science) come computers and internet and suddenly...

Information is free. A digital creation, binary zeroes and ones in some mind-created cyberspace, and then...

And so a new story is written thus: _We are_.


End file.
